


Life Lessons

by CookieDoughMe



Series: Nate Hansen AU [4]
Category: Haven (TV)
Genre: Gen, M/M, but sometimes the best things that happen to us look like disasters at first, but they are happy tears honest, duke and nate as kids, duke tries to pick pockets, gloria as gloria ;), he thinks he made the wrong choice when he picks gloria's, i made myself cry with this one, nate hansen au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-18
Updated: 2017-06-18
Packaged: 2018-11-15 16:07:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11234484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CookieDoughMe/pseuds/CookieDoughMe
Summary: “What's your name, kiddo?”





	Life Lessons

Duke thought he'd gotten away with it until a hand clamped down on his shoulder and stopped him dead.

“If you're going to pick pockets, you need to be better at it than that.”

Duke turned on his winning smile and remembered his line, “I just wanted to know if I could do it. Here you go,” he said easily, turning around as she let him go. He could still feel her fingers on his shoulder though; she was stronger than she looked.

“Hmmm,” the woman replied, apparently not convinced by his lie. “Well, it would hardly have been worth it just for this.”

“There you are then,” he said. He knew he should probably turn tail and run at this point, but something kept him where he was.

-

Gloria looked over the scrawny little kid who’d had his hand in her bag. With holes in his shoes, stains on his t-shirt, and a fading bruise on his arm, all set off with a cocky grin far more charming than he had any right to be, he looked like a proper little Artful Dodger in training. She could have just clipped him round the ear and told him to get lost, but there was something familiar about him.

“What's your name, kiddo?”

“Duke,” he said, wondering if she would ask for a surname, and then realising she didn’t need one. 

“You're Simon Crocker's kid,” she said, as though it explained many more things than he had thought needed explaining. 

It wasn't a question, so he didn't say anything, just drew himself up a little taller and titled his head back just a fraction, as if to say  _ And? _

“Tell you what Duke, I'm in need of someone to help me … clear my garden. Leaves everywhere. Come and help me tomorrow afternoon and I'll feed you a better meal than you'll get taking random ingredients from unsuspecting shoppers at the farmers market. Deal?”

“How many leaves you got? I got a friend could help too.”

“What's this friend's name then?”

“Nate. Hansen.”

Gloria hissed through her teeth, “Max’s boy?”

Duke nodded, unsure why he wasn't too worried that this strange woman knew who their fathers were.

“Sure,” she said, “Nate can come too. Wash my car as well and I'll thrown in desert.”

Duke grinned up at her and nodded, thinking  _ Wait until I tell Nate about this! _

_ - _

The next day the two of them cleared a few leaves from a lawn that did not seem to get used much, ran a sponge over a barely dusty car and then ate a big meal while Gloria watched them and asked question about their lives. They answered as they ate. Some of the answers were even true. As they left she suggested they come back again next week, “There’s still a few more leaves left to fall.”

And so that became their Sunday afternoon routine. For the first few months, each afternoon went much like the first. Then, Gloria got them the weeding flower beds and checking the oil in the car. After a while, they were washing windows and mowing the lawn. As they got older still, they cleared the gutters, helped her rearrange furniture, and fixed broken roof tiles after a storm.

And always, at the end of the day there was a meal. Gloria cooked the same way she did everything; a no-nonsense approach that, while it might never warrant any Michelin stars, ensured a big plate of something nutritious which left them both with barely any room for the dessert that always followed. 

And while they ate, she talked. About nothing much, at first; building their trust gradually, as they would one day realise. But that didn’t take too long, not really, and then she talked to them about life. Her life; the things she’d done, the places she’d been, and the things she planned still to do. And other people’s lives too; famous leaders, scientists, inventors, fictional characters as well.

She gave them, they would realise with gratitude many years later, a sense of the vastness of the world, of the possibilities that lay outside of Haven, and a sense of life as a journey, where you never know what’s around the next corner. She inspired them, in truth, though none of them ever used that word.

And throughout it all, while she talked about actions and events she talked about words too; about the books she’d read, about the books others had written or been inspired by. And while she was careful never to tell them what they should do with their lives, the one instruction she always gave them, even young though they were, was to make sure they learnt to read.

“I know you hate that school, and probably with good reason, but if you let them teach you anything, let them teach you to read. If you learn to read now, then when you’re older you can learn anything you want.”

And of course, the promise of that was too much to pass up, so they went to a few more classes after that, and practiced reading aloud to each other. And they spent time in the library too, devouring superhero comics, and then sci-fi novels, before eventually working their way through all the genres of fiction on the shelves and into the non-fiction sections too.

Because the other part of Gloria’s lesson (the part that she didn’t put into words) was that learning how to read wasn’t enough; they should also learn to love reading. It was a lesson they learnt, and learnt well, and in that way she showed them the world; even from inside the Haven Community Library.

And so, they listened as they ate, and they came pretty quickly to look forward to Sunday afternoons for the company and the conversation as much as the food. And then, more than ten years after Duke had gone to the farmers’ market to practice his pickpocketing skills, him and Nate finally left Haven to really put Gloria’s lessons into practice. 

And she wished them all the best, knowing they would see the world for real. And they thanked her as they said goodbye, the one person in Haven they were sad to leave behind. 


End file.
